WEBVTT - 4. Bananas in Tucson 0:00:05.519 --> 0:00:08.200 From my Heart Media. This is Missing in Alaska, the 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:11.640 story of two congressmen who vanished in nineteen two and 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:14.160 my quest to figure out what happened to them. I'm 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:29.159 your host, John Wallzac, March fourth, ninet, Tucson, Arizona. The 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:33.600 sun is setting. The temperature sinks below sixty. There's a 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:36.879 light breeze. It's early in the evening. At the El 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:41.600 Dorado Lodge, a luxurious desert resort. A gorgeous tree line 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:45.080 road leads up to a complex of old stone clad buildings. 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:50.000 Tranquil mountains lurk in the distance. Sitting at a bar 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:53.159 is Tom Davis, a detective with the Arizona Department of 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:56.840 Public Safety. He's joined by a supervisor and a reporter. 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:02.960 They're all undercover. And that's say you shaped bar, and 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:08.199 on one side is the public side. On the other 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:12.479 side is a room and it's just you know, it's 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:16.520 just an alcove. Well, if you set on the public side, 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:18.759 you could see what was going on in the alcove. 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:24.360 Lo and behold, here comes this party and it's Jerry 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:29.080 and his wife and his one of the people that 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:34.440 he had gone to Anchorage with. And you know it 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:38.560 for me being a brand new guy. This was fascinating. 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:43.160 Jerry is Jerome Jerry Max Paisley, a thirty three year 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:46.480 old murderer and bomber with close ties to two prominent 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:51.160 mafia families. So we sat there and we just kept 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:54.280 making notes and watching all the activities and the pictures 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:59.960 being taken, and boom, it's noted that Jerry married Peggy. 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:04.120 Peggy is Peggy begat the widow of Congressman Nick beget 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:06.800 at the time of the wedding. Did you know who 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:13.240 Peggy was? I probably did, but I probably didn't put 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:16.720 any significance to it. Were you aware at the time 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:18.639 of the wedding that Peggy was the widow of a 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:23.800 missing congressman? Uh? Yeah, but it didn't take it seriously. 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:28.000 Why because it was it was an accident plane crack 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:36.160 pause for a minute. Let this sink. In. Sixteen months 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:40.000 and sixteen days after her husband, a U S congressman, 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:45.000 disappeared in Alaska, Peggy Begett married Jerry Paisley, a mobster, 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:50.840 at a wedding in Arizona. It sounds sensational, It is sensational, 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:54.440 but I want to be clear it's true. It's not 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:58.600 some baseless conspiracy. It did happen. I have a copy 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:02.400 of the marriage license and photos of the reception. In fact, 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:05.680 I have the original photos. Tom Davis gave them to me. 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:09.440 The pictures I gave you with Jerry. That's the last 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:17.560 I have unless I resurrect. Uh. Those are the originals 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:21.880 I took and sent to you. But you can look 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:24.520 at the paper and tell that that came out of 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:27.919 the book, out of the Bible. This is from your bible. Yep. 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:33.119 That's the last existing piece. Davis, who had to distinguished 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:36.200 thirty six year career in law enforcement, worked on a 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:39.840 small team that battled organized climb in Arizona. He had 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:43.400 a secret book, a so called bible, which listed about 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:47.240 a hundred local mobsters and their associates. In the bible 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:53.520 was Jerry Paisley. Man Paisley, Where to start? He's so 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:57.000 important to this story. I need to tell you about him, 0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:01.360 his history, his personality, his shocking laims. But I don't 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.600 want to glorify him. He was a murderer and a bomber, 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:14.680 an abusive, violent man. He doesn't deserve glory. Paisley was 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:17.600 born in Detroit in nineteen forty one. He grew up 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:20.560 in a bad neighborhood. As a teen, he enlisted in 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:24.120 the Navy. I don't know much about his early years, 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:27.000 just bits and pieces I picked up along the way. 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:29.360 But I can share with you an incident that occurred 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:33.200 when he was nineteen, a violent attack that illustrates the rough, 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:37.159 jagged nature of his life from birth to death. On 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:41.120 May three, nineteen sixty, Paisley was hitchhiking in California when 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:44.479 four men accosted him using either a razor or a 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:47.960 sharp piece of glass. Paisley wasn't sure which. They carved 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:52.440 a four inch cross and two letters ZS into his arm. Thankfully, 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:59.520 the wounds were superficial he didn't need stitches. Two years later, 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:03.720 after the Navy discharged him, Paisley returned to Detroit. That's 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:06.040 where he started working for the lick of Oli Family, 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:10.640 an organized crime syndicate led by Pete Horseface lika Oli Senior. 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:15.240 That's also where he befriended pete seniors sons, especially Pete Jr. 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:18.080 In fact, the two men got close enough that in 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:22.000 nineteen seventy four, Pete Locooli Jr. Attended Paisley's wedding to 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:25.960 Peggy Begat Pete Jr. And his wife Cathy even traveled 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.200 with Peggy and Paisley on their honeymoon in Mexico. The 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:31.799 lick of OLiS were a mid tier mob family, nothing 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:36.440 special mid century. They moved from Detroit to Tucson. Paisley 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:40.679 went with them. Soon thereafter, another much more famous mafia 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:45.880 family also moved to Tucson, The Bananas. Remember Vito cor Leoni. 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:50.040 Marlon Brando's character from the Godfather. Cor Leoni was based 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:54.920 in part on famed mafia don Joe Bonano Senior. During 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:59.000 the sixties in Tucson, Paisley befriended Banano's sons Bill and 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:03.000 Joe Jr. He was captivated by the family's flashy infamy 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:07.440 and gritty glamour ine. He even made a brief cameo 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.320 and honor thy father. A best seller on the Bananas 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:14.279 written by legendary author Gay Talise. I asked Talise, who's 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:17.599 eight eight, if he remembers Paisley. He said he doesn't. 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:23.440 That was a long time ago. The Bananas were not 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:26.960 only celebrities in Tucson, they were well known throughout the nation. 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:31.799 Joe Sr. Was quite literally the Big Cheese, a nickname 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:35.599 he got by sinking his teeth into the dairy industry. Laugh, 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:38.080 go ahead, but there was a lot of money to 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:42.000 be made in the cheese trade, counterfeit, mazzarella, money laundering, 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:45.960 stuff like that. Bonano was a big deal, one of 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:49.880 the most important mafioso's in American history, the patriarch of 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:53.360 one of the so called Five families which dominated organized 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:56.720 crime in New York City during the early twentieth century. 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:59.839 Bonano saw himself as a gentleman. He liked to say 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:04.799 that he lived by old school values. Booze but not narcotics. Murder, sure, 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:09.000 but only if you deserved it. But he distorted reality. 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:13.120 The Banano family was brutal. They were violent gangsters. They 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:16.920 maimed and murdered, and bombed and extorted and kidnapped and 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:21.440 committed fraud. Later, they tried to rehabilitate their image, But 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.520 Joe Banano didn't become Joe Banano by being a polite 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:28.400 man who just dabbled in bootlegging. For three decades from 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:31.840 the nineteen thirties to nineteen sixties, Banano held an iron 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:35.640 grip on his family. His stranglehold began to unravel in 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.400 the mid sixties when he got greedy and tried to 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:42.960 assassinate rival mob bosses. The plot failed, igniting a bloody 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:46.000 mob war called the Banana War, or, as the press 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:50.960 sarcastically dubbed it, the Banana Split. See. One of Banano's nicknames, 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:55.000 which he absolutely hated, was Joe Bananas, hence the name 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:58.080 of his signature war. At one point during the war, 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:02.560 Banana was kidnapped and for while he disappeared. It's thought, though, 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:05.920 that he staged the kidnapping in order to avoid testifying 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:09.840 before a grand jury. When he eventually resurfaced, he decided 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:13.560 to make a strategic retreat to Tucson, where he quote retired. 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:17.280 But that was bullshit. He was diminished, but not dead, 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:22.800 and he certainly wasn't retired. I know, I'm throwing a 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:26.720 million names at you, so let's recap. We have a 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:30.520 Jerry Paisley, who married Peggy Beget, the widow of Congressman 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:34.720 Nick Beget, in nineteen four b The Lick of OLiS, 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:38.040 a mid tier mob family from Paisley's hometown of Detroit 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:41.920 who relocated to Tucson and for whom Paisley worked. And 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:45.960 see the Bananas, a famous mob family from New York 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:49.960 who also relocated to Tucson and for whom Paisley also worked, 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:54.760 Jerry Paisley, the Lick of Olies, the bananas, They're all 0:08:54.800 --> 0:09:00.360 tied together. But why Tucson. It seems random, right, an 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:04.800 odd place for the mob to me. Not really, It's sunny, 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:08.480 it's pretty removed from the violence of Chicago and New York. 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:13.000 In Detroit, it makes sense, and Arizona had lacks laws 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.760 which allowed the mob to easily launder money. Arizona was 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:21.000 Switzerland in the United States. Arizona had a blind trust 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:24.959 system in his banking system that allows people to hide 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:27.840 moneys here just as effectively as they could in Switzerland. 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:31.600 And the blind trust accounts that could be set up 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:35.400 with laundered money the bank accounts themsels could also own 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:38.160 real estate. And when I first began working over here 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:43.480 in nearly seventies, Peccati was owned by number and nobody 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:45.840 knew who owned anything. It was all through blind trust 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:50.160 accounts at a bank. That's Don Devereaux a seasoned investigative 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:54.080 reporter in Arizona who covered organized crime for decades. He's 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.079 best known for his never ending investigation into the nineteen 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:00.520 seventy six assassination of reporter Don Bowles, who was killed 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:03.200 in Phoenix by a car bomb. Something will cover later. 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.719 Devereaux also dug into both the Banano and Locavoli families. 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:10.959 With two major mob families in Tucson, you'd figure there 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:14.960 would be some bitter rivalry, so many angry egos crammed 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:18.199 into a small desert city, but that wasn't the case. 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:22.000 We're looking Holy moved out here from Detroit, and he 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.280 was a friend of Joe's and and and writed The 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:27.560 Look of Religion. Lots of rolling people from around the 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:30.600 country to move to Tucson and the Phoenix to retire. 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:34.800 Look at really largely came to the Tucson area to retire. 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:37.559 But Ana was still active when he was at me too, 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:40.120 so but look a Holy largely had left Detroit behind. 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:44.240 And there was a retired bob guy living comfortably in Tucson, 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:48.800 um on a place called the Grace Ranches they called 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:54.079 with his family. Uh and close friends and close enough 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:57.480 they know they shared the same accountant um they were. 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:00.400 You know, there were secrets between those guys. They were 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:05.400 both friends and not competitors, and you know, happily you know, 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.120 seeing each other as good friends. Yeah, even though the 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:12.800 Bananas and Look of OLiS maintained peace between their respective families, 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:16.120 their presidence was detrimental to Tucson as a whole. In 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:18.760 the late sixties, the city became a hot spot for 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:22.960 mob violence, most notably a series of high profile bombings. 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:26.960 Many of these bombings were tied to extortion attempts, insurance scams, 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:31.880 and vigilante payback. The motivation behind some, though, was more complicated. 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:36.120 In July, the homes of both Joe Banano Senior and 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:39.600 Pete Lacavoli Senior were bombed. There was a war started 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:44.559 between Banana and Lukavoli by a rogue FDIH named David Hale. 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:49.160 Back in the day, Hale began planning bombs on most 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:51.440 of Banana and the look of Holy people as if 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:55.040 they were fighting back and forth between themselves, trying to 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:57.400 start some sort of an internet scene mob war between 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:02.760 Lukaolian and It obviously didn't work, and David Hale got 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:05.920 exposed as having you know, done this himself as an 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:09.920 FBI agent. David Hale denied that he was behind the bombings. 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:13.280 Hale was never convicted of any crime tied to the bombings. 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:21.840 He didn't respond to interview requests in night, someone also 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:25.080 bombed the house of a prominent judge named Evo Diconcini. 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:28.600 DeConcini had been friends with Joe Banano, but later, when 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:30.840 his son Dennis was elected to the U. S. Senate, 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:34.760 he distanced himself from the mob boss. I just said 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:39.880 someone bombed Judge Deconcini's home. But guess who that someone was. 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:44.960 Jerry Paisley, the same Jerry Paisley who only six years 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:49.040 later would marry Peggy Baggage. Several sources told me Paisley 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:52.880 was behind the DeConcini bombing. Paisley was something of a fixer, 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:57.320 they said, a wanna be gangster. He was technically a mobster, 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:00.400 but low and seniority, more the guy you turn to 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:02.839 to break some legs or chuck some dynamite over a 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:06.840 fence than the mastermind of any operation. To my knowledge, 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:10.120 he was responsible for at least three bombings, including the 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:40.240 DeConcini bombing. So how on earth did Jerry Paisley, a 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:43.760 mobster who bombed to judge's house, end up marrying Peggy Begett, 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:46.920 the widow of a missing congressman. How did they meet? 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:51.840 The official story is this in late nine About a 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:54.960 year after Nick Beggetts vanished, Peggy was with a friend 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:57.560 at the holiday in an Anchorage when she ran into Paisley, 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:00.360 who was tending bar. They hit it off, and a 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.400 few months later, in March nineteen seventy four, they got 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:06.640 hitched in Tucson. I've already told you why the mob 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:09.640 was in Tucson. But why was the mob in Alaska 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:13.160 in the seventies. Why was Jerry Paisley in Alaska in 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:19.920 the seventies? One word oil. After the discovery of oil 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:24.000 in nineteen sixty eight at Prudeo Bay, Alaska boomed. Everything 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:26.720 in modern Alaska history can be split into pre nineteen 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:31.560 sixty eight and post nineteen Pre nineteen sixty eight, Alaska 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:35.680 was scenic and had timber and bears a stereotype, sure, 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.160 but people in the lower forty eight didn't really care 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:41.920 about it except for its natural beauty, some of its resources, 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:44.560 and at the height of the Cold War, it's strategic 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:48.960 location near the Soviet Union. Post ninety eight, Alaska was 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:51.960 an oil state, a state with immense wealth waiting to 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:54.840 be tapped, a state with mounds of money just waiting 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:58.680 to be pumped into people's pockets. Pre nineteen sixty eight, 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:03.760 there was crime, but wasn't exorbitant. Post ninety eight, it boomed. 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:08.560 Pre ninety eight, you could still find affordable housing. Post 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:12.640 night with a crush of new workers, you couldn't. It 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:16.400 was during this boom atmosphere in nineteen seventy that Alaskin's 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:19.520 first elected, Nick Baggetts, to the u. S. House. Beggetts 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:23.960 had run a campaign promising to maximize oil prosperity, but importantly, 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:27.520 he also acknowledged the problems that stirred up. Here's an 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:30.440 ad he ran in nineteen seventy. You don't have to 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:32.680 be an economist to know that we have a critical 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:35.560 housing shortage. All you have to do is try to 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:39.520 find a place to live. Five years ago, the typical 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:42.880 monthly payments for a twenty thousand dollar home would be 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:47.560 about one Now, a twenty thousand dollar home that's if 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:50.920 you can find one, would be well over two dollars 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:55.760 a month. America's leading housing official recently stated that less 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:59.280 than of Americans can really afford to buy a home. 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:04.840 That's the problem nationwide. The last situation is worse. There 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:11.560 are practical solutions. Nick Beggatch finds practical solutions as a 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:15.000 state senator. He's been doing it for eight years, and 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:19.240 he's been vocal about it. Nick begat has always wanted 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:23.640 you to know where he stood. He still does. Nick 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:29.200 beggat is Alaska's man for Congress. Beggatte went on to 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:32.280 help pass the Alaska Native Claim Settlement Act or ANKSA, 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:36.040 a monumental piece of legislation that removed a major obstacle 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:39.760 blocking construction of the Trans Alaska Pipeline, but the pipeline 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:44.120 still faced countless legal, political, and environmental hurdles. It wasn't 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:48.240 until March nine, two and a half years after Beggett's vanished, 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:52.640 that construction finally began. Poor morning. After years of planning, 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:56.720 court fights, and stockpiling of materials, construction of the Alaska 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:00.640 Oil Pipeline begins. It will run almost eight hundred miles 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:03.239 from the North supe of Alaska to the port of Valdes. 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:06.160 The pipeline is supposed to be finished in about two 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:09.520 years at a cost of at least six billion dollars. 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.159 The Big boom is already underway in Alaska. Asked the 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:16.720 people in the city of Fairbanks, for example, Jack Perkins did, 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:20.520 and here is his report. It used to be in 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:24.879 fair Banks that keeping the snow shoveled half the roof 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:29.080 was one of the main problems. But today, with the 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:32.520 coming of the pipe loving, Fairbanks is a boomtown and 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:35.359 there are new problems they never thought of here before. 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:41.840 Used to be in Fairbanks you can make a telephone 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:48.120 call right away without having to try for an hour 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:54.160 without getting buzzed off. But with the pipeline, the local 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:57.880 phone system is flooded with more calls than a year 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:01.120 ago and can't handle them. Used to be, you could 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:04.240 get an apartment, nothing fancy, but sheltered for a couple 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:09.800 hundred dollars. Now rents have doubled and tripled, one bedroom 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:14.120 five hundred a month and hardly anything available. Vacancy rate 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:21.359 in Fairbanks about zero. And consider crime rates. Always a 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:25.040 drinking town, but arrests for drunkenness now up a hundred 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:31.359 and thirty five percent, juvenile arrests up fifty robberies up 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:34.359 a hundred and twenty three percent, and with all the 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:37.320 pipeline workers passing through town with their rolls of money, 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:42.439 prostitution arrests up seven percent. Many of the people who 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:45.600 moved to Alaska long before the oil boom were upset 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:49.240 to see the pristine home changing so rapidly. What you're 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:52.560 getting here, of course, is what is what they call progress, 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:54.880 isn't it? Now that's one name for it. I've heard 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:59.119 other names for it which might not be arable. It 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:02.359 happens to sit. Is this bursting and straining toward what 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:06.640 is sometimes called progress? But maybe nowhere has it ever 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:10.399 happened so much and so fast. And it's not just 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:13.320 the people of Fairbanks weren't ready for it is there? 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:17.280 Many of them don't want it at all. Jack Perkins, 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:23.000 NBC News, Fairbanks, Alaska. Two years later, in June nine, 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:28.199 construction on the pipeline wrapped up. Oil Mania reached a 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:32.480 fever pitch. Now the richest could really flow. There's oil 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:35.680 in the pipeline, the Trans Alaska Pipeline. This evening pump 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:38.679 station number one at Prudeoe Bay, two hundred and fifty 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:41.679 miles north of the Arctic Circle today began pushing heated 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:46.840 crude oil into the pipe. Don Oliver was there here. 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.920 It is finally finished after eight years of planning and building. 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:54.760 The oil companies rattled off all sorts of superlative statistics 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:58.400 about it. Eight hundred miles long, built by a peak 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:01.960 workforce of more than tw thousands from one end to 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:05.040 the other, it will hold three hundred and eighty million 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:09.879 gallons of oil. The cost nearly eight billion dollars, the 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:16.080 largest most expensive project ever attempted by a private enterprise. Okay, 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:19.400 so again, by this point it should be blatantly obvious 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:22.960 why the Mob and Jerry Paisley specifically came to Alaska 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:26.880 in the seventies. Oil oil is what drew the Mob 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.800 to Alaska. Oil is what drew Paisley to Alaska. It 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:34.760 was a black gold rush. Here's Mike Grimes, a retired 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:37.959 cop who worked for the Anchorage Police Department. That was 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:42.439 the period when Alaska was just booming. It was like 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:47.960 a goal rush count because of oil pipeline being constructed, 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:51.840 so much money up there. They had such a dramatic 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:57.520 increase in population, and everybody coming from somewhere else, uh 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:01.080 to get rich in Alaska. And so it was a 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:04.280 very fascinating time to be working vice. And there was 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:08.600 only three of us on the vice squad at that time. 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:14.280 And uh, we had such an influx of prostitutional vainly 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:19.080 off the West coast. So the prostitution industry was just 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:24.600 booming up there on the gambling that we were having 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:29.360 people come from all over with organized crime behind them 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:34.920 from other states and set up underground gambling joints in 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:40.680 Anchorage and uh and then after hours clubs that were 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:45.480 illegally serving alcohol. So we were inundated for the three 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:49.080 man vice squad. It was a wild time and Paisley 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:52.240 and the mob wanted to cash in drugs, sex work, 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:56.000 you name it. Paisley moved to Alaska nineteen seventy three 0:21:56.160 --> 0:22:00.159 with his close friend Sal Spinelli. Like Paisley, Spinelli was 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:02.160 a mobster with ties to both the lick of Oli 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:06.119 and Banano crime families. When Paisley wed Peggy beget in 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:11.000 March n Spinelli was his best man After the wedding. 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:14.840 When Peggy, Paisley, and Spinelli returned to Anchorage, Spinelli opened 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:18.280 a jewelry store with Peggy's oldest son, Nick Begett's Jr. 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:21.399 Multiple law enforcement sources told me the store was a 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:26.119 front for stolen jewelry, including turquoise traffic from Arizona to Alaska. 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:30.320 Nick Begats Jr. Now a well known conspiracy theorist, was 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:34.040 only a teenager at the time. He declined interview requests. 0:22:34.440 --> 0:22:36.959 He was never convicted of any crime pertaining to the 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:40.200 theft of jewelry, and again, he was only a kid, 0:22:40.600 --> 0:22:43.040 a kid who lost his dad and ended up with 0:22:43.080 --> 0:23:13.160 a violent new stepfather, Jerry Paisley. As Paisley settled into 0:23:13.200 --> 0:23:17.359 married life, Peggy Begett now Peggy Paisley, showered him with money. 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:21.560 After Nick, her first husband, disappeared, Peggy had received a 0:23:21.600 --> 0:23:25.040 windfall of cash. According to documents I found archived at 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:28.480 the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, there was a fifty five 0:23:28.480 --> 0:23:31.639 thousand dollar life insurance policy which had a double indemnity 0:23:31.680 --> 0:23:34.840 clause for accidental death, so a hundred and ten thousand 0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:37.879 dollars from that, and there was a one time forty 0:23:38.520 --> 0:23:41.880 five dollar benefit from Congress, plus the balance of Nick's 0:23:41.960 --> 0:23:46.040 checking in retirement accounts. Altogether, Peggy got at least a 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:48.760 hundred and fifty eight thousand, four hundred and thirty one 0:23:48.800 --> 0:23:52.200 dollars and seven cents, about a million dollars today when 0:23:52.200 --> 0:23:57.360 adjusted for inflation. She inherited other things too, including apartment buildings. 0:23:57.960 --> 0:24:00.000 Peggy spent much of that money on her new husband 0:24:00.040 --> 0:24:04.040 and Paisley. The newlyweds honeymoon in Mexico. They were joined 0:24:04.040 --> 0:24:07.240 on that trip, as I said earlier, by Pete Lacavol Jr. 0:24:07.280 --> 0:24:11.560 And his wife Cathy. Peggy bought Paisley expensive jewelry and 0:24:11.600 --> 0:24:15.240 fancy cars too, including a Cadillac El Dorado and a 0:24:15.320 --> 0:24:19.520 Jaguar x K. She also bought him a bar. In 0:24:19.600 --> 0:24:23.840 May nineteen seventy four, two months after Peggy and Paisley wed, 0:24:23.880 --> 0:24:27.080 they started a business called Max Inc. I obtained the 0:24:27.080 --> 0:24:30.760 company's records from the state of Alaska. Peggy was the president, 0:24:31.000 --> 0:24:34.320 Paisley was the secretary treasurer, and another man whom I'll 0:24:34.320 --> 0:24:38.240 discussed later was the vice president. Max Inc. Operated a 0:24:38.280 --> 0:24:41.440 bar and anchorage called the Alaska Mining Company, the type 0:24:41.440 --> 0:24:44.520 of watering hole that minted money during the oil boom. 0:24:44.600 --> 0:24:48.119 It had previously been called the Green Dragon. Here again 0:24:48.320 --> 0:24:51.520 is Mike Grimes, the retired Anchorage cop who worked vice 0:24:51.680 --> 0:24:55.840 in the seventies. I heard Paisley was involved in the 0:24:57.440 --> 0:25:00.679 it's called Laska Mining Company before it was a reading dragon, 0:25:01.080 --> 0:25:03.960 that he was involved in that place with the Beggy 0:25:04.080 --> 0:25:06.679 just and I said, God, what are they doing this scumback? 0:25:07.480 --> 0:25:10.280 You know, because uh, I mean, I was a lifelong 0:25:10.320 --> 0:25:15.240 Alaskan Nick Beggy towards my congress. Peggy and Paisley's marriage 0:25:15.280 --> 0:25:18.520 wasn't exactly common knowledge, at least to the general public, 0:25:19.000 --> 0:25:21.679 but a good number of politically connected folks and members 0:25:21.720 --> 0:25:26.359 of law enforcement knew about it. Perhaps this is a 0:25:26.400 --> 0:25:29.560 good time to pause to examine why the marriage is 0:25:29.600 --> 0:25:33.600 even newsworthy at all, because I know what people will say. 0:25:34.040 --> 0:25:37.360 They'll say I'm reporting it because it's salacious. They'll say 0:25:37.400 --> 0:25:39.639 I'm trying to sex up this story in order to 0:25:39.680 --> 0:25:42.960 sell it. But that's not true. They don't know what 0:25:43.160 --> 0:25:46.560 I know. At first glance, Peggy Begett seems to be 0:25:46.600 --> 0:25:50.680 a sympathetic character, a woman whose husband vanished, a woman 0:25:50.720 --> 0:25:53.879 who became a single mother to six kids, a woman 0:25:53.880 --> 0:25:58.120 who's now a grandmother in her eighties. Typically her personal 0:25:58.119 --> 0:26:00.840 life would be none of my business. Sure, she ran 0:26:00.880 --> 0:26:04.120 for Congress several times after Nick disappeared, so she was 0:26:04.240 --> 0:26:07.440 for a while a public figure. But that's not why 0:26:07.440 --> 0:26:10.399 I'm reporting this, So bear with me. We have a 0:26:10.440 --> 0:26:13.280 ways to go. I also want to be clear about 0:26:13.320 --> 0:26:17.120 something else. I'm not reporting everything I know. I learned 0:26:17.160 --> 0:26:21.119 a lot, but certain things, while salacious, aren't pertinent to 0:26:21.200 --> 0:26:25.000 this story, and I'm purposely leaving them out. Also, one 0:26:25.040 --> 0:26:29.119 more thing, Mark beget, Peggy's son, served for six years 0:26:29.119 --> 0:26:31.440 in the U. S. Senate. So let me say too 0:26:31.560 --> 0:26:34.600 that I have no political agenda here. In fact, I 0:26:34.640 --> 0:26:36.959 think Mark was a good senator, and he was just 0:26:37.040 --> 0:26:39.960 a kid when all of this happened, a kid traumatized 0:26:39.960 --> 0:26:43.120 by the loss of his father. Peggy Beggett and Mark 0:26:43.160 --> 0:26:50.240 Beggett declined multiple interview requests. Living large on Peggy's money, 0:26:50.359 --> 0:26:54.399 Paisley spiraled out of control by nine six. He was 0:26:54.440 --> 0:27:00.399 heavily into drugs, was married to Peggy. He just couldn't 0:27:00.480 --> 0:27:03.800 leave a cocaine alone. And it's since the cocaine and 0:27:03.840 --> 0:27:07.280 the women and this and that, and it just it 0:27:07.440 --> 0:27:13.000 was terrible to to watch the deterioration of his and 0:27:13.160 --> 0:27:17.320 Peggy's relationship. I felt sorry for Peggy, you know, and 0:27:17.440 --> 0:27:22.800 she got herself into something that she probably had no idea. 0:27:24.400 --> 0:27:27.960 Do you know if she knew of his background really 0:27:28.040 --> 0:27:31.680